The sad story of M. Night Shalayaman or whatever the name is follows a familiar pattern for those in the know. Before I say this, I must say that I have no information to substantiate this, other than what my father observed working for Francis Ford Coppola at his early 1980'a Zoetrope studios in the actual city of Hollywood.

M Knight had three films that cemented him as brilliant in the minds of Hollywood, it's producers, and money men - The over rated Sixth Sense - Unbreakable, and in my opinion, a masterpiece, Signs. Between the three, I think he grossed about $700,000,000 worldwide, making undoubtedly a very rich man.

Then suddenly he started coming out with failure after failure - the Villiage, Lady in the Water, The Last Airbender, and the rest. Using his past successes, he could get all the money he wanted from the executive producers, who expected results and big profits again. But they got zilch. A movie has to take in three times it's cost to break even or did when my father was head of publicity, advertising, and public relations for Warner Brothers, so if Last Airbender cost $140,000,000 to make and took in $300,000,000 world wide, it lost everything.

The difference, I believe, and I have absolutely no evidence to support this other than knowing the industry and it's people which I grew up in and with, has probably been something that comes from Peru and Columbia. It gives you big, grandiose, and twisted, looser ideas, that lead only to heaps of money tossed down the toilet from people who trust you from your past record. Remember, I have no knowledge to support this, but the pattern is there.

When my dad was later working for Coppola, he was doing stuff from 8AM until closing, mostly green, but Peru too, and produced one total grandiose thinking looser after another. My father even raised $3,000,000 for one of them, that was lost. Then MY MOTHER diagnosed him as manic depressive, or bipolar, which many creative geniuses are, he got on Lithium, and his life normalized out. Next came Bram Stokers Dracula, a huge money maker, and huge winery profits and a great life, marred only by the loss of one of his two sons in a horrible accident.

I hope I am wrong about M Night. He seemed like a great guy and if that BIG BITCH WHORE took a bunch of his fortune and his magic away, it would be real real sad.

First of all, softhairysexy, welcome to the board. I think your analysis is pretty interesting and generally correct. I personally regard The Sixth Sense as one of the most wildly overrated films of the past decade and a half, and to call Signs a masterpiece goes overboard. It was an okay sci-fi movie, not a great one by any means. I suspect M. Night's early films got a lot more attention on the basis of originality than real substance, and his later films bear that out strongly. Even the more highly praised early films don't withstand close scrutiny, and aren't passing the test of time.

Nine times out of ten, in art as in life, there is no truth to be discovered, only an error to be exposed.--H.L. Menken

Great first post, softhairysexy. Very honest and well-informed. Although, like saturnwatcher said, calling "Signs" a masterpiece is kinda overreaching, say when compared to the likes of the original "Day The Earth Stood Still", the original "War of the Worlds", or "Close Encounters of the Third Kind".

The Four Horsemen of the Moviepocalypse: uncalled for sequels/remakes/reboots, 3-D surcharges, untalented "celebrities", and anything with Michael Bay's name attached to it.

Great first post, softhairysexy. Very honest and well-informed. Although, like saturnwatcher said, calling "Signs" a masterpiece is kinda overreaching, say when compared to the likes of the original "Day The Earth Stood Still", the original "War of the Worlds", or "Close Encounters of the Third Kind".

Don't forget Invasion of the Body Snatcher, the original and the 1979 remake, as far as comparisons are concerned.

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